


Like a Jolt of Espresso to the Skin

by jazzypizzaz



Category: The Tick (TV 2017)
Genre: Antennae, Arthur's sexual awakening, Corny Jokes. don't say i didn't warn you, Embarrassment, First Time, Hand Jobs, Intimacy, M/M, Porn with Feelings, the Tick's too... probably. he doesn't know!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 09:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19128928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: The Tick and Arthur have sprinkled a little extra spice into their daily destiny-love-and-justice gumbo: kissing!  This awakens a long dormant libido in Arthur that he doesn't quite know what to do about.  They figure it out together.





	Like a Jolt of Espresso to the Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Art, without whom there would be many more awkward sentences. 
> 
> probably this is a sequel to "Kiss and Run".

Everything else stays the same.

Improbably absurd villains conduct their madcap plans upon the City. The Tick barges into the fray in the name of justice, and Arthur swoops in by his side. They team-up with their friends in various superhero combinations depending on the day and situation. More importantly, Tick and Arthur always have each others’ backs. At the end of the day the two of them go home to the still busted up apartment for whatever dinner they can scramble together before passing out. Then the next morning Tick drinks more coffee than anyone should and they do it all again.

Each day is its own exhilarating adventure, but the general rhythms are much the same as always.

Except for that new little something more. That extra spice sprinkled into their destiny-love-and-justice daily gumbo.

It’s a peck on the lips before rushing into battle. It’s Tick grabbing Arthur's face with both hands and smooching him, hard, after Arthur yet again brushes against his own very real vulnerability during their mishaps. It’s saving innocent bystanders, be they human, dog, or mole person, and then a swelling kiss of triumph, revelling in the fact that this is what Tick and Arthur _do_ , this is who they _are_ \-- heroes, together. It’s a slow, soft press of the lips on the couch at home, _their_ home, drinking in a rare moment of peace and intimacy, before Tick breaks into a rousing superhero’s monologue or Arthur starts theorizing about a villain’s next move, and they plan for tomorrow.

They’re still _them_ , the City’s dynamic superduo. Just a little more so, now.

It’s driving Arthur crazy. In a good way. In a way that’s, well, maybe a little _too_ good.

\---

Arthur drifts back into consciousness slowly. An arm thrown across his chest pins him down, with the owner of that arm, Tick, face down and snoring loudly into a pillow beside Arthur, sprawled across the other three-quarters of his queen-size bed.

The Tick started sleeping in Arthur’s bed with him a week or so before they kissed for the first time. Or rather, Arthur stopped kicking Tick out sometime after Tick woke him up for the third time from a night terror. Then Arthur realized that the solid undoubtedly real mass of a sleeping Tick beside him, flopping and punching and occasionally yelling nonsequiters (Tick is always active, even when unconscious), turns out to be the most effective measure for a peaceful night.

The concept of becoming so comfortable with someone, of letting someone into his life so completely that Arthur could sleep beside them, had previously seemed a terrifying concept. With the Tick though, it only seemed natural.

But it hadn’t occurred to him that this habit of theirs would take on new complications, now that the physical nature of their relationship shifted.  Or that this shift would force Arthur to confront the idea of opening himself up to another kind of terrifying intimacy.

The weight of the arm is warm and heavy, anchoring Arthur in place. Tick’s hand flexes in his sleep -- he mumbles something about “caterpillars in a dragonfly’s world” -- so that he grips Arthur’s side, pulling him in close. Arthur keeps his eyes closed savoring the moment, nestling into his warmth. He can feel the firmness of Tick’s muscular bicep, the strength of his grip, the protectiveness with which the arm curls around him. Arthur drifts off a bit, into a hazy state of remembering what it feels like for that broad body to be pressed fully against him. For those arms to fully encircle him in that powerful embrace. Tick’s curious mouth against his, exploring.

Mmm. Mmmmm.

It’s so warm in here. Hot even, inside and out. Something tugs within Arthur and then expands, a burning kindled in his gut and spreading fast and --

Arthur’s eyes shoot open. He immediately convulses out from under the Tick. In the process, he gets tangled in the sheets and ends up flopping onto the hard ground.

“Lil buddy? Flying away?” A drowsy interrogative sounds from the bed.

“I’m fine! It’s nothing,” Arthur squeaks out, wincing in a stew of embarrassment and guilt (and a growing bruise on his tailbone). “You can go back to sleep.”

“Unfurl those sleepy wings, small moth, one flap at a time,” Tick says, or something like that at least -- it’s said directly into a pillow while Arthur is already scrambling out of the room.

Arthur slams the bathroom door behind him and locks it.

He breathes for a moment, thinks about what just happened.

Breath quickening, he trails his hand down then his stomach, under the waistband of his boxers. He considers what if he -- he imagines that he could just -- it’s not a big deal right?

Arthur pauses.

Except that this time it’s with a particular blue someone in mind, someone who was a brief moment ago holding him in bed, someone currently a short distance away on the other side of the door and none the wiser.

Arthur decides not to think anymore. He tries to drown himself in a hot shower. When that definitely does not work, he tries the same with a cold shower.

When he shuts the water off, there’s still a buzzing in his veins. An unresolved edge that’s going to linger. Arthur shakes his head, like he’s Onward after a heavy rain in the old hero reels, water droplets spinning off of him in lieu of the feeling he’s attempting to shake. He steps out of the shower, resigned to being uncomfortable and --

“Hey Arthur!” With a crash, the door swings open. The Tick’s booming voice echoes around the walls of the bathroom. “Did you hear on the radio? Sweet baby corn-ling of a maize people, kidnapped in her silks -- oh.” The Tick looks at the doorknob in his hand, still switched to the locked position but now torn free of the door it was supposed to keep in place. He attempts to cram the knob back in, but it clangs onto the floor. “They ought to make these out of sterner stuff! Does no one superhero-proof anymore?”

Arthur, meanwhile, is frozen in place on the bathmat, completely exposed and growing redder by the second. Like he’s been caught in the act, but without the satisfaction of actually doing anything.

Arthur hastily grabs a towel to preserve some small measure of modesty, though it doesn’t feel as effective as he would like. He curls around himself, trying and failing to convince himself not to be embarrassed.

The way he felt in bed, in the shower -- it’s only natural, right? Other people spend significant periods of their lives feeling like this, or so he’s been led to believe.

He’s spent so much of his own life in a dark haze, and only now that he’s no longer bouncing from depression to panic to mania and around again, only now that the Tick’s bright optimism and generous hugs turned his world upside-down, _only now_ does he feel like he’s waking up, in so many regards, all at once. This is just one more aspect of that.

There’s also the major fact that Arthur spends almost every minute of his day with his giant, muscular, overly affectionate partner. Who could blame him for being overwhelmed with lust, if belatedly. He only wishes he didn’t have to deal with it while unexpectedly naked in front of said partner.

“I uh I don’t think anyone is quite capable of Tick-proofing,” Arthur mumbles, eyes screwed shut as if that could make him disappear. Why couldn’t he have an invisibility superpower? “Apparently.”

Tick finally tears his attention away from the knob. He locks eyes with Arthur, a chagrined look on his face. He blinks a couple times. Then glances down. Then back up. His antennas twitch. “If you wanted privacy, chum, you should have said so!”

“I’m in the _bathroom_ , Tick, and I locked the door...” 

“Never fear, there are no secrets between superhero partners. I’ve already seen you --” Tick drops into an exaggerated whisper. “-- _unmasked_ , after all! And I know all your secret identity clothes.”

“I’m _usually_ unmasked! And those are my regular clothes, but this! This is a towel.” Arthur gulps.

Arthur’s heart is racing, but in an unfamiliar way. It’s not the usual suspects: anxiety, or physical exertion, or fear. It’s not even entirely that Tick caught him off-guard, because well, Tick is always barging in on him in some unpredictable manner or another, burrowing further past the now-vestigial walls Arthur constructed that he doesn’t otherwise know how to tear down.

It feels more like… anticipation.

Tick’s antennas flick side to side as if he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do in this situation. But he doesn’t waver from staring at Arthur. Maybe he doesn’t pick up on the stew of embarrassment and guilt and, yes, arousal boiling through Arthur, doesn’t understand he should look away, and really all Arthur needs to do is explain. Maybe, yes, likely that’s the case.

However, and this could be wishful thinking on Arthur’s part, it could be that Tick is drinking him in, that he doesn’t _want_ to look away. Arthur knows what he looks like, what his body looks like, pasty and flabby and undersized, small scars and various blemishes, and he knows all the ways that he doesn’t measure up by what could be considered normal standards, but the thing about the Tick is -- no one could ever accuse him of valuing normalcy.

And the way Tick is looking at him now, all Tick sees is Arthur.

The cold shower is wearing off, and heat gathers in Arthur’s face, pools in his stomach.

Arthur, breaking eye contact to stare resolutely at his feet, thrusts a hand out towards where Tick hovers in the doorway. “Could you pass me my clothes at least? Then we can deal with -- did you say corn people? With whoever.”

“The Maize tribe of their most noble cornliness have nothing on you, chum!” Tick says, Arthur doesn’t even try to parse what that means. Tick’s smile dims to a few lumens short of a bright summer day. “Say, it’s only a door, pal. We’ll super-proof this apartment yet, no need to shuck your husk over split kernels! Why I bet sister Dot knows her way around a hammer --”

“No, that’s not -- I don’t care about the door. I’m not, I’m not splitting my kernels over that, okay?  I'm not trying to keep secrets, it's just that…” Arthur turns his back to Tick, shimmying boxers on under the towel, undershirt on over his head. He still feels exposed. “I -- I want things that you probably don’t. And that’s okay! Um, we can talk about it later. Fully clothed. Outside the bathroom.”

“What _I_ want is a happy Arthur! And world peace, if there’s a wish leftover. Although I do have a sudden  _strange_ hankering for Joan’s triple corn casserole…” Tick trails off for a moment. “But mostly the part about Arthur.”

“That’s- that’s great Tick.” Arthur gives a small smile, then brushes past Tick back into the bedroom. Tick follows. Arthur roots through his closet for the moth suit as he explains, “I -- it’s just -- I’ve had my fair share of awkward shower moments, you know? Or you don’t know but, for a recent example there was a thing, with Dangerboat, and it doesn’t matter anymore, it was a misunderstanding, but -- I don’t want to do that to you. I mean, I know I’m not a boat, and I'm not trying to give you a shower, and I know I’m not making any sense --”

“Dangerboat... was trying to be in a relationship with you, and it was weird and awkward.”

Oddly lucid, for Tick. Head buried in the closet, Arthur pauses in his search for a moment, taken off-guard. “Uh yeah… That sounds like how I phrased it.”

“But _we_ are in a relationship. You and me?” One of Tick’s antennas flick out.

“Yes. _Yes._ God yes, you and me.” Arthur whips his focus from the closet back to Tick, uncrouching from the piles of laundry. “But I don’t want to _presume_ anything, about you when you don't even know... just because my body, because I want --”

He reaches for Tick and hesitates. Tick takes the outstretched hand to hold in his own.

“What do you want?” Tick says, in a way that belies his pure curiosity, untethered from of expectation.

Arthur shuts his eyes for a moment, opens them again. He swings Tick’s hand in his. “I’m not entirely sure,” he admits in a small voice, then, mustering up a small thread of courage before it dissipates, says, “I want, I want _you_.”

“I’m right here.” Tick squints, tilts his head. “Unless I’m not... Are any of us _here_ , or are we but dreams in the mind of sweet mistress destiny--”

“Oh, you’re real,” Arthur says adamantly. He squeezes Tick’s hand, grateful, and his heart squeezes too. “I already made sure of that.”

“Sometimes I’m not sure myself,” Tick says, in a deceptively offhand manner.. “But I’m always real when I’m with you.”

"Me too."  Something catches in Arthur’s throat. Choked up, he manages to say, “What I want is, I want you to touch me.”

Tick grins broadly. “Is that all? I always want to touch you, chum. You make me into a telephone wire, a crackling lifeline of expression shouted into the ether, electrocuting birds! You make me FEEL! The Arthur connection: it’s a jolt of espresso to the skin!”

“Oh.” Arthur nods, mulling over those Tick-isms in his head. “Oh, that’s how I feel too. About you. That's exactly it.” He nods a couple more times, thinking, still hesitant about the whole situation.

Tick’s eyes flick to where Arthur is busy worrying his lip.

Before Arthur can make a decision about how to proceed, Tick grabs him and kisses into his mouth.

Oh. _Yes_.

It’s Arthur’s wings catching him after he falls off a roof; it’s those nanobutter croissants after a nonstop lunchless patrol; it’s an arc of Ms Lint’s electricity, buzzing through his lips igniting downwards straight through his toes, but instead connecting him to _Tick_.

A low moan escapes Arthur, and Tick hums back into his mouth. Arthur clings to him, drinks him in, drowns himself in him. Tick responds in kind. One of Tick’s hands grips Arthur’s upper arm, hard, lifting him to tiptoes so their mouths can reach more comfortably. The other hand moves to Arthur’s lower back, pressing him closer so that for support Arthur has to balance fully against Tick.

They make out until Arthur’s head is whirring and empty, all his blood having left it to concentrate elsewhere. Eventually, Arthur pulls away with the intent of cooling off a bit. Tick lets him go. Arthur lands on rubber knees, catching them on the bed behind him to sit down.

“Wowie, zowie!” Tick, face flushed and antennas sticking straight up, has a dopey grin.

He bellyflops onto the bed beside Arthur. The bedframe creaks and cracks under the abuse, but doesn’t break. Arthur laughs with exhilaration, flopping backwards on the mattress to lie down, feet swinging over the side, giddy and light.

When Arthur catches his breath again, Tick has shifted onto his side, head in hand, looming over him with a peculiar intent expression on his face.

Arthur swallows. “You can touch me anywhere,” he whispers.

With one careful index finger pointed, Tick slowly pokes Arthur’s nose. Arthur chuckles, heart leaping with fondness. Tick, with great concentration, brushes his fingertips against Arthur’s chin stubble, his sideburns, his creased forehead.

All areas that, on Tick, are covered by his cowl or exoskeleton or whatever that blue is.

This isn’t at all what Arthur meant, but he melts into the touch all the same. What he loves about the Tick is that Tick never ceases to surprise him, never quite does the expected.

Tick touches the curves of Arthur's ears. He traces down and pinches the lobe. Arthur gasps. The pinch travels straight to his groin. He didn't realize that was a thing that could happen.

“Like a bird welcomes the dawn! Sing your joy for me, little friend.” Tick grins.

“I will,” Arthur promises, more serious than the moment calls for.

He rests his hand lightly on Tick’s, guiding it downwards, across his chest, his stomach, stopping it at his boxers. “If - if you want. I want you to. If that’s something you want, too. Do you understand?”

“No?” Tick says. Arthur hovers his own hand over his boxers, motioning with a demonstration. Tick’s antennas bend then spring back straight up. Then he nods. “Clear as dew!”

This is like standing at the edge of the rooftop that first time, ready to deploy the wings.  Arthur becomes gripped with sudden anxiety. “Be gentle?” he squeaks. “I haven’t -- I haven’t done anything like this before.”

“Hey, twinsies! Relax, dear chum, I’ll practice my kitten-petting touch.”

“Please don’t call it a kitten,” Arthur starts to say, but then Tick slides his hand under the waistband. Arthur cuts off his own objections with wordless noise.

Fuck, he didn’t know something could feel this good. They should bottle this and prescribe it.

Tick continues to stroke at Arthur, clumsy and more rough than Arthur would for himself, but well within the bounds of gentle, at least for Tick. Arthur reaches down several times to readjust Tick’s hand, to guide him in the process.

Arthur can’t stop the plaintive whimpering sounds from escaping his mouth. This is better than flying, and almost as scary.

“Okay, chum?”

“More than,” he breathes.

Tick leans down to kiss Arthur, slow and messy. There’s a sudden poke at the top of Arthur’s head. He jerks and opens his eyes, only to discover it’s Tick’s antennas bending forward to nestle into his hair. Tick drapes himself over Arthur, hand still exploring below. Tick’s body traps Arthur against the mattress, firm and broad and heavy, from shoulder to waist to hip to --

Arthur pulls away from the kiss, reluctantly, and presses a hand against Tick’s shoulder as a cue for him to pause.

“Are you uh -- enjoying this? Is this -- affecting you?” Arthur asks between heavy breaths.

Tick’s face is flushed, and he looks as dazed as Arthur feels. “I am the dawn! A bright glorious sun erupts within me --”

“Then… Or -- do you not have --?” Arthur strokes a hand down Tick’s muscular chest. Tick sighs happily with the touch. He shifts to the side off of Arthur. Arthur continues down until his hand is hovering over Tick’s smooth groin.

Tick shrugs.

Arthur places his hand on the groin, but it feels like it looks, as though Tick were a real life action figure. As much as Arthur is up for anything, regarding Tick, it’s vaguely disconcerting. Disappointment peeks its head in. As enthusiastic and expressive as Tick is, in partaking in this with him, Arthur would like to be assured that Tick is enjoying it the same way, that Arthur can show his own appreciation for Tick and make him feel just as good in return. He wants to be sharing this experience together.

“Oh, chum, turn that frown upside down!” Tick’s antennas curve forward.

Then Arthur realizes there _is_ somewhere on Tick that he’s never touched before now.

Paying close attention to how Tick reacts, Arthur caresses the side of Tick's face. He glides along the unbroken seam between blue and flesh, upwards. Tick stays perfectly still, except for eyes watching Arthur, except for when he realizes where Arthur is going and his barrel chest rises and falls as in anticipation. Arthur touches his fingertips to an antenna. He slides along the length, barely grazing it. It may have been analogy before now, but there seems to be an actual electric current that buzzes from it to Arthur’s fingers. Tick shudders and closes his eyes.

Arthur gradually firms his grip until Tick is moaning and babbling:

“Sweet momma! Holy cat’s pajamas!” Tick shouts in an unbroken stream of creative ejaculations. “A pineapple sundae with guava on top!”

Arthur spares a brief worry for his neighbors, but to be honest, they’ve heard worse coming from the apartment before. If they haven’t complained about all the racket various supervillains have made busting in to his place, they don’t have a right to complain about this.

In one swift motion, Tick knocks Arthur onto his back again. He lies on top of him again, kissing him with vigor. Arthur grabs onto both antennas, taking care not to tweak or grab too brusquely. Tick doesn’t have the same concern, or rather, his level of careful still veers towards over-enthusiastic as he works his hand again beneath Arthur’s boxers. Arthur might end up chafed, but right now he can’t bring himself to care. They can figure that out later.

Arthur thrusts up against Tick, while Tick holds him down. They pant and gasp and moan into each others’ shoulders. The bed creaks alarmingly under their effort.

After a while, the electricity in Tick’s antennas becomes stronger, until it feels hot enough to burn Arthur’s hands, but he can’t physically pull them away. Tick shouts, “Holy macaroon! What _finesse_ , dear chum!” then falls silent. The charge in the antennas lingers, then fades until the antennas grow cold. Arthur lets go, basking in the Tick’s blissful smile like ambrosia.

Tick keeps touching him. Inside Arthur it builds and builds -- like he’s soaring into the clouds seeing how high he can fly until the air becomes too thin. Then, only clouds and the piercing bright of sunshine washes through him. He floats back to earth and lands safely in Tick's arms.

For all Arthur's fear of intimacy, for his concern about Tick's reaction, this ended up feeling like the most natural thing in the world, for them.

“I didn’t know they did that.” Arthur gestures with a lazy hand to Tick’s antennas.

“Me either!”

“Is that what they’re for?”

“No idea, chum.”

\---

Gradually, the sound of news on the radio fades in through their boneless haze.

“Oh crap,” Arthur sits straight up. He smacks his forehead. “A-maize-on. Amazon! Their trade conference with the Atlantisians was today, and apparently the princess was abducted! Tick, we gotta go. Shit shit.”

“The call for justice _never_ _takes a day off_ , does it!” Tick heaves an exaggerated put-upon sigh.

Arthur smiles and kisses his cheek. “But when it sleeps, we can do this all again. Every day even.” He waggles his eyebrows. “We sure are a- _maize_ -ing together, aren’t we?”

“You can bet your husks on that, chum!” Tick winks.

A quick rinse and one moth suit later, they head off across the rooftops to answer destiny’s call.


End file.
